Why Would Arizona Allow Direct Tesla Car Sales? To Get A Tesla Factory In The State, Of Course

An electric bargaining chip.

While other states like New Jersey are moving to ban direct sales of Tesla cars, Arizona is mulling over the idea of allowing the automaker to cut out the middleman. So what’s different in Arizona?

It’s not that Arizona is just nicer than other states, but it has its eye on a bigger prize than keeping car dealerships happy — it wants Tesla to build its massive factory in the state, reports CNNMoney.

State lawmakers have a bill in the works that would allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly to consumers, all as part of its plan to woo the company and convince it that ARizona is the best place for its so-called gigafactory: A $1.6 billion battery production center that could give up to 6,500 people jobs.

Tesla is considering four states, with Arizona among them, and lawmakers there want to give the state an edge over competitors.

“We wanted to send a message that Arizona is open for business,” the bill’s sponsor, Warren Petersen (R) told a CNN affiliate, adding that the measure would have only a “very small impact” on the state’s auto market.

The bill will still face objections from those in the auto dealer industry, however, with lobbyists likely to make a big push to keep Tesla’s direct sales out of Arizona.

If it does manage to get the bill through, it might be a big advantage over other states pitching Tesla for its factory. Nevada’s dealership law is up in the air right now, while New Mexico and Texas have banned direct sales.

Arizona may allow Tesla sales [CNNMoney]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Search For E.T. Atari Cartridges In The Desert Is Still Happening – Or Maybe Not

Is he in a sandy grave, waiting to return to the surface?

Last June, we shared with you the exciting news that a documentary film crew would be searching the New Mexico desert for a video game legend. They would dig up the desert landfill where millions of unsold copies of the notoriously terrible 1982 Atari game E.T. were allegedly interred. What happened with that? Not much, it turns out.

Back then, we heard that the company had six months to dig up the landfill for their movie, which would be exclusive, to the Xbox platform. The trouble is that their plan needed to be approved by state environmental regulators, since it’s their business who goes around digging up landfills from the early ’80s. Even if the legend is true, there’s more than just a bunch of terrible game cartridges buried at the site.

Back in June, the city approved the crew’s quest to bring E.T. home, but state environmental regulators have not. The dump where the cartridges would have been, well, dumped shut down in 2004 due to “compounds of concern” and the federal government was asked to take it over as a Superfund site.

This is where things get interesting: the dig hasn’t happened yet. Why? The local newspaper reports that the state isn’t satisfied with the company’s waste excavation plan and aren’t letting the dig go forward. One of the film’s organizers told the Associated Press that the dig is proceeding as planned, and the filmmakers have hired a company to take care of the environmental aspects. Which version is true? It’s not yet clear.

Like his crudely animated onscreen avatar, E.T. remains trapped in a pit. Based on what we’ve heard about the game, that may be just as well.

Atari dig put on hold in Alamogordo by state agency [Almogordo News]

SEARCH FOR OLD ATARI GAMES TO GO ON IN NEW MEXICO [AP]

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Movie Studio Set To Comb Desert Landfill For Notoriously Terrible ‘E.T.’ Atari Game

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Verizon Accused Of Deliberately Neglecting Landline Service To Push Customers To FiOS

(Rich Renomeron)

It’s no secret that companies like AT&T and Verizon look at their aging copper landline networks as expensive dinosaurs of a pre-Internet age. But one advocacy group alleges that Verizon has allowed its copper lines to fall into disrepair in the hopes of pushing landline customers to Internet-based phone service.

In an emergency petition [PDF] filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, a group called The Utility Reform Network (TURN) claims that “Verizon is engaging in business practices that are contrary to its statutory obligation to provide adequate service and are harmful to the interests of its California customers.”

More precisely TURN alleges that Verizon is “deliberately neglecting the repair and maintenance of its copper network with the explicit goal of migrating basic telephone service customers who experience service problems,” and is asking CPUC to “order Verizon to repair the service of copper-based landline telephone customers who have requested repair or wish to retain the copper services they were cut off of.”

The petition states that when landline customers request repair service, Verizon is sometimes migrating them from its copper wire network to other Verizon Internet-based services, whether it’s VoIP phone service via FiOS or the wireless Voice Link, which the company tried to push on some areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. TURN claims that there have been instances in which customers were migrated to the new services without their knowledge.

TURN also says that Verizon is not making customers aware of the potential shortcomings of Internet-based services, most importantly the fact that VoIP service will not last long during a prolonged power outage.

According to the petition, when a standard customer makes two service calls for outside repairs within a 6-month period, they are labeled a “chronic customer,” and that “it is Verizon’s goal to migrate ‘chronic customers’ to Voice Link, in lieu of maintaining and repairing copper plant.”

When reached for comment by Ars Technica, a rep for Verizon said the claims in the TURN petition are “blatantly false.”

“We have identified certain customers in fiber network areas who have had recurring repair issues over their copper-based service recently or clusters of customers in areas where we have had recurring copper-based infrastructure issues,” the rep told Ars. “Moving them to our all-fiber network will improve the reliability of their service. When these customers contact us with a repair request, we suggest fiber as a repair option. If the customer agrees, we move their service from our copper to our all-fiber network. There is no charge for this work, and customers will pay the same rate for their service. Most customers recognize and appreciate the increased reliability of fiber and gladly agree to the move to fiber. Few customers across our service area have chosen to stay with copper and, once on fiber, few ask to return to copper… Nobody is forced to take our services, nor are customers given new services without consent or knowledge.”

But Ars points to the recent testimony by a Verizon employee at a public hearing before the California Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee to show that the company may not be giving consumers the option of retaining their current copper landline service.

“I have been trying to help a customer who has been out of service since January,” said the employee, who testified that she brought the matter to a supervisor who then told her “it would be too expensive to repair and that the only customer’s only option would be Voice Link… To this date the customer has been out of service.”

Furthermore, she says Verizon’s policy is for employees to not tell customers that they can take their complaints to CPUC.

In the TURN petition, customers complain that they are told the only way to get timely phone repairs is to switch to FiOS.

“Verizon is threatening that if we don’t switch over to digital and get rid of copper that their response time for fixing any phone problems will go from one to two days to two weeks,” says one customer.

The FCC recently decided to allow telephone companies to begin voluntary tests of replacing existing landlines with VoIP service, but only in limited, approved areas. It will take some time, potentially years, before these tests are sufficient to placate regulators.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

California DMV Says Drivers’ Credit Card Data Might Have Been Breached

(So Cal Metro)

Here we go again: Now that we’ve all gotten used to security breaches, why not throw another one on top of Target and the rest? The California Department of Motor Vehicles says there’s a possible data security breach in its credit card processing services, though there’s no evidence of a hack yet.

There are no details yet about how the breach happened, if it did indeed happen at all, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. But even the suggestion that it happened is likely an unwelcome thought to those driver who pay fees to the DMV online, especially amidst other hacks on Target, Neiman Marcus and other retailers.

Law enforcement informed the DMV about the potential breach this weekend, and the department says protecting its customers is its “highest priority.”

“The department has implemented heightened monitoring of all DMV website traffic and credit card transactions. We will immediately notify any affected DMV customers as quickly as possible if we find any issue,” said Armando Botello, public information officer for the DMV. DMV customers are also encouraged to closely monitor their credit card statements and transactions for any fraudulent or unusual activity and report it to their credit card company immediately.”

California DMV reports possible breach of credit card data [San Francisco Chronicle]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

American Airlines Flight Returns To Gate Because No One Wants To Travel In A Flying Ball Of Fire

(zonaphoto)

Flight delays are always an inconvenience. But officials at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport had a good reason for holding back an early morning American Airlines flight Monday.

An early morning flight to Detroit returned to the gate shortly after pushing back when flames were seen shooting from the back of the plane, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Flight 294 was taxiing just before 7:30 a.m. when the pilot of another plane saw flames and called for fire trucks. Emergency vehicles surrounded the plane. An immediate fire was not found, but the runway was briefly closed.

An official with the Federal Aviation Association says a fuel leak may have resulted in a ball of flames shooting out the back of the plane when it was pushed into throttle for takeoff.

It was unclear how long the flight would be delayed or if passengers were placed on other flights. All runways are open and outbound flights are onetime, the Dallas Morning News reports.

FAA says possible fuel leak created ‘ball of flame’ that led to AA flight’s rerun to D/FW Airport gate [Dallas Morning News]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Is In-Person Banking Going The Way Of The Dodo?

(reillydesign)

When I was a child, I remember going to the bank every Friday with my mom. She’d run inside to deposit her paycheck, or pull up to the drive-thru window where the teller would sometimes put a candy in the cash envelope if he or she saw me or my siblings sitting in the car. It’s all very quaint and rose-colored now, but that notion of going to the bank on a regular basis appears to be a thing of the past.

A new survey from BankRate.com found that 30% of all bank or credit union customers hadn’t been to their local branch in at least six months. That’s about the same percentage of people who had visited the bank within the previous week.

So with those two ends of the spectrum accounting for a total of 60% of consumers, it’s that 40% of people who sometimes go to the bank who will determine whether it’s important to have a local bank branch or not.

If you believe the children (or in this case, those were recently children) are our future, then the future of in-person banking is bleak. According to the BankRate numbers, fewer than 1-in-5 people under the age of 30 visited a bank branch on a weekly basis, while nearly one-third of customers over the age of 30 are popping by the local branch on a regular basis.

But is this a matter of the younger generation choosing to bank online or via ATM, or is it because these youngsters haven’t started earning enough money to merit regular visits to the bank? The BankRate survey found a sizable difference in bank visits based on customers’ incomes.

29% of those earning below $30,000 a year said they hadn’t been to a bank in at least a year, nearly double the percentage of respondents earning at least $75,000 a year.

But even as that group begins to earn more money, it seems likely that in-person banking will continue to decline in popularity. More employees receive their pay via direct-deposit, and many workers are only paid twice-monthly (or sometimes only once a month), so even if they do get paper checks, the visit to the bank is less frequent. Additionally, a number of banks now offer customers the ability to deposit checks via smartphone apps.

Given the BankRate data, banks would seem more likely to keep branches open in affluent areas, where customers not only have more on deposit but are more likely to request that person-to-person contact. Meanwhile, financial institutions may choose to close branches where customers are not taking advantage of these services and where customers are less likely to meet with bank staffers about things like high-value auto and home loans, or shifting funds between accounts.

While some may shrug off the decline in popularity of in-person banking as an inevitability, it may have the unfortunate side-effect of harming the communities where local bank branches are needed the most.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Train Jumps Tracks And Climbs Escalator At Chicago O’Hare Airport, Injuring Dozens

This is what the station normally look like, without a train on the escalator. (bclinesmith)

A convenient feature of Chicago’s O’Hare airport for many travelers is the Blue Line train that runs directly to the airport, providing an easy way to get to your flight without too much hassle. But there was plenty of hassle involved yesterday when one of those trains jumped a barrier at the end of the tracks and went up the escalator that leads to the terminals, injuring dozens.

The eight-car train crashed through the barrier at the end of the tracks early this morning at around 2:50 a.m. as it was pulling into O’Hare. It even made its way up the escalator somewhat, injuring at least 32 people, says Chicago’s Transit Authority. No injuries are thought to be life-threatening, adds USA Today.

“The train actually climbed over the last stop, jumped up on the sidewalk and then went up the stairs and escalator,” said Chicago Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago.

A CTA spokesman said the agency is trying to figure out how, exactly, the train jumped the tracks, but it could be a matter of too much speed. The Blue Line has been suspended between O’Hare and Rosemont this morning, so if you’re heading to the airport, you’ll need to figure out alternate transportation.

“We will be looking at everything — equipment, signals, the human factor,” he said.

As someone who’s spent some time traveling in and out of Chicago, I can attest to wanting the train to speed up a bit, or deliver me directly to my gate. I just never thought it would actually attempt such a feat.

Dozens injured in train derailment at O’Hare airport [USA Today]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Apple, Comcast Chatting About Streaming TV Service That Would Make End-Run Around Net Neutrality

(SimonA)

One of the biggest roadblocks for non-cable TV companies looking to get into the business of offering live TV service over the Internet is that these cable companies often control that “last mile” of Internet service to customers’ homes. Since the FCC’s net neutrality rules have been gutted — and ISPs now realizing they can charge tolls to content providers even if those rules were in place — the end-user might just get a TV screen full of blocky, stuttering visuals and intermittent audio. Apple is reportedly chatting with Comcast about a set-top box that would get around this concern by treating Apple’s stream differently than regular Internet traffic.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which cites the ever-reliable “people familiar with the matter,” Apple has proposed the notion to Comcast that thes possible streaming feeds be treated not like everyday Internet traffic, which can get congested when too many people are using it at once, but as a “managed service,” meaning it would get the same treatment as Comcast’s phone service or its on-demand channels.

Back in 2012, Comcast aggravated net neutrality proponents by announcing that users of its Xfinity app on the Xbox 360 would not have that data charged against any monthly usage cap because that stream was being treated as a managed service. In spite of a fuss put up by consumer advocates, the FCC did not stop Comcast from making this distinction.

Under the now-dead net neutrality rules, ISPs were not allowed to prioritize any one provider’s traffic over another. The Journal’s sources say Apple doesn’t want high-priority from Comcast, it wants a “flow” that is separate from the rest of the Internet traffic.

This is important for two reasons — First, even though the neutrality rules were struck down by a federal court, Comcast had already agreed to abide by those guidelines until 2018 when it merged with NBC Universal a few years back. Second, it would set a precedent allowing third-party video providers to pay for access to a section of the data-to-the-home pipeline that had previously been considered off-limits.

Meanwhile, the FCC is hard at work in its not-so-secret lair, creating new net neutrality rules that would not only pass legal muster, but would — hopefully, but not definitely — take into account things like paid-peering and managed services. These are two ways in which ISPs could compel deep-pocketed content providers to ante up, leaving the end-users to pay even more and leading to a higher cost for entry into the market for smaller companies hoping to reach consumers online. Any neutrality rules that don’t consider these two issues would effectively be neutered from the start.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Pantene Changes Anti-Frizz Rhetoric, Removes 1.7 Ounces From Conditioner Bottle

Jeremy picked up a bottle of Pantene conditioner during his recent trip to Walmart. They made some changes to the bottle and to the company’s promises about what their product does. The redesign also included trimming the bottle size just a tiny bit.

Here’s the old bottle (left) next to the newer one (right) hanging out in their natural habitat. Mostly we’re amused that the previous label bragged that the product “fights frizz” while the newer version claims that it “tames frizz.” Saying that your product can tame something means that it’s succeeding. When you say that a conditioner “fights frizz for 72 hours,” that doesn’t mean that it even defeats frizz in a single strand of hair.

This is Consumerist, though, not an advanced advertising copy workshop. We’re mostly just sad about losing that 1.7 ounces. That’s a whole day’s worth of frizz-fighting. Or taming. Or something.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

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